Beside me, Tess sighs deeply, causing me to glance in her direction. We are alone in the dressing room, though soon it will begin to fill with dancers checking in for the night shift.
Tess stands naked in front of the mirror applying foundation to the bruise that I now notice spreads across her cheek. “What happened?” I inquire.
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror, and I see uneasily that she is on the verge of tears. I don’t know her well; I keep most of my stripper colleagues at arm’s length. I have just potentially opened a door that I will not be able to close. But the bruise is dark and angry.
She forces a smile. “Oh, you know. I deserved it.”
No matter how many times I hear stories of abuse from women, the language they use always shocks me. I shake my head. “Nope. No one ever deserves to be hit. Ever.”
Her eyes drop from mine and she fusses with the little pot of foundation. “You sound like someone who knows.”
I puzzle over her words. Does she mean that I speak with conviction? Does she think that I have experienced being hit?
“My boyfriend threw a television at me once,” I share finally. “I broke his nose.”
She laughs, wiping her eyes. “I bet he really beat the shit out of you then!”
I shake my head again. “Of course not. I kicked him out of the house and broke up with him. Had the locks changed by that evening.”
She looks at me in disbelief.
“As soon as someone is willing to use violence against their partner, it’s over. Always.” I go back to brushing foundation over my cheekbones.
“But you know what men are like.”
I feel myself getting irritated. “Stupid boys have been getting away with violence against women for centuries because women rationalize it using shit logic like that,” I snap.
Her eyes fill with tears again and I feel bad. I turn to face her. “Look, you have to learn to stand up for yourself.”
Her chin trembles and she looks down. “I don’t know how,” she whispers.
I feel tightness spread across my chest. I am out of my depth here. I do not understand abuse or the mentality of the victim. No one has ever touched me with violence. Even the TV-throwing boyfriend did not so much throw it as knock it off the counter in my general direction. And the look of sheer misery on his face told me immediately that he had no intention of harming me. I still ended the relationship, though. I didn’t want to give that miserable look a chance to grow into something else.
“Look.” I reach out and take her hand. Her fingers close tightly over mine. “Men are just people. There are good ones and bad ones. And you can’t allow yourself to stay with a bad man.”
“But …” Her voice is no more than a whisper. I have to lean in to catch her words. “But he loves me.”
“No.” I give her hand a hard squeeze, then reach out and lift her face when she does not look up, forcing her to meet my eye. “Love is soft and caring and playful. Sometimes it’s hard but it is never violent. It’s normal to quarrel and struggle to communicate. But no one should ever hit. Ever.”
“You hit your man.”
She’s got me there. “That’s when I knew it was over,” I reply finally. “I knew I couldn’t stay in a relationship where that sort of thing had been introduced.”
She is openly crying now and I hand her a tissue. “But they have all hit.”
The tightness in my chest drops hard into my stomach. I feel myself sway and grip the edge of the dressing counter. “All of them.” I repeat her words, trying to make sense of what she’s telling me. I think I know what she’s telling me. “Everyone has always hit.”
“Starting with your parents,” I say. I’m not really guessing. I know this story.
“Yes,” she whispers. “My mom used to …” She falters and then steadies herself. “My mom used to trade me for drugs.”
Now I do sit down. But I keep holding her hand. “How old were you?”
She scrubs her eyes with the tissue and shakes her hair back, seeming to brace herself. “It started when I was six.”
“Oh, my god.” Now I am the one whispering. “Oh, Tess. I’m so sorry.”
She meets my eyes. “You’re saying that this never happened to you?”
“Nothing like that has ever happened to me.”
She stares at me, seeming almost angry. “You’re saying that no one has ever hit you.”
“Never.”
“And no one has ever molested you.”
“No.”
“Raped you.”
I shake my head, mute.
She pulls her hand away. Taking one last swipe at her eyes, she says, “Well, aren’t you lucky.”
I’m stunned. She picks up the foundation and begins covering the bruise, working quickly and methodically.
“Tess …”
She glances at me in the mirror, her eyes hard. “What?”
“I am lucky,” I say.
“You bet your ass you are.”
I am silenced in the face of her anger. I have revealed myself to be a different sort of woman, one who does not fear men. I am an alien creature, dismissed as impossibly distant.
Studies reveal that a woman who has been sexually abused is almost twice as likely to be abused again. Abuse changes a person, makes them take more risks, normalizes assault. Maybe a person who has been raped is likelier to project victimhood, attracting predators.
I have always been fierce, a fighter. I communicate in no uncertain terms and demand respect. I was taught to make good choices and never settle for anything less than being seen as a human with autonomy.
But I am also lucky. Predators sometimes target women like me. I cannot take full responsibility for remaining unassaulted. It is good fortune and not anything I have done that has kept me safe from the lecherous uncle, the drunken frat boy, the creeper in the bar following me home.